Over the years various ratchet wrenches and sockets for use therewith have been developed for allowing an externally threaded member to pass through the socket and wrench as a fastener threaded on the threaded member is driven with the socket and ratchet wrench. By allowing the threaded member to pass through the socket and wrench, these wrenches eliminate the need for deep well sockets which are expensive and break more easily than shallow sockets. These wrenches are commonly referred to as “pass through” wrenches and two known wrenches of this type which are commercially available today are the Armstrong Eliminator wrench which is available from the Danaher Tool Group of Lancaster, Pa. and the O-Ratchet wrench which is available from Summit Tools of Denton, Tex. A wrench similar to the Eliminator wrench is generally described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,857,390 to Whiteford while a wrench similar to the O-Ratchet wrench is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,602,534.
While both of these wrenches work with varying degrees of success neither has been particularly successful in the marketplace because neither offers all the advantages of conventional sockets and ratchet wrenches which use the conventional square male drive to connect the socket to the wrench and drive the socket. The Eliminator and O-Ratchet wrenches seem to have particular difficulty in holding the socket on the wrench. They are also more complicated and more expensive to manufacture than conventional wrenches and sockets. Other “pass through” type wrenches found in a search of the patent literature include U.S. Pat. No. 5,626,062 to Colvin and U.S. Pat. No. 4,328,720 to Shiel as well as our own previously developed “pass through” ratchet wrench which is described in International application No. WO 98/49455.